Navy Island Recon Expedition

Navy Island Reconnaissance
Sunday August 20, 2007
Robbyn Drake, Captain & Crew

(As transcribed from notes during the expedition. Times may be approximate.)

1:00 PM. Launching the Riverwatch 2 solo from Eagle Overlook, Grand Island. Weather report: Mixed clouds. Moody. Chirpy. Kinda hot. Will have to watch for storm action.

1:12 PM. Arrive at Navy Island and call Canadian authorities as instructed (by Canadian authorities, this morning). Bon jour! They want to know if I am carrying guns, fruits, animals, explosives, beer, vegetables, cigarettes, $10,000 in cash, other people or items for resale in addition to myself in this 10 foot kayak. I am amazed at the possibilities. Then we have a problem because Riverwatch 2 has no identification number, other than “2”, which is not actually on it. For five minutes the excessively polite and increasingly flustered fellow and I seek a number on the boat, until I finally accidentally sit on a thistle in the process (Ow! What? Nothing.). I write my birthdate on the boat in blue ballpoint and read it to him. He seems relieved, hanging up quickly.

1:17 PM. It feels good to have Navy Island at my back, river lapping at my boots in the gravel – better than the mainland or Grand Island. The water is like glass today, so clear that coming over I could see the exact spot where the bottom drops out of sight into blackness. Then there is just the current rippling and sliding at the surface like the muscles of a massive animal. I should have brought some food.

1:25 PM. The immediate forest is spiky Hawthorn with a few Ash, dead Elms and a lot of deer sign. Poison ivy abounds, mostly in the trees. There is a vine of it thicker than my lower leg. I'll move counter-clockwise around the island. I hope I hid my boat and paddle well enough. If not, guess I’ll become an islander.

1:35 PM. I encounter a ditch with 30-year old trees growing in it, running due west. On the shore side it enters a culvert about a foot in diameter. I wonder if this is from the hoteliers of the early 1900’s or the 1800’s farmers.

1:45 PM. Big trees and seasonal wet forest (says the dark stained leaf litter). This place is underwater in the spring! Right now it is bone dry and all the nettles are wilted. There is little evidence of human traffic. Even the beer cans look like they’re from the 80’s.

1:55 PM. I just heard a couple of whistles that could be bird or human. A jay screamed too, in the same direction. I am rather hoping not to meet any humans or feral dogs. A wolf would be okay.

2:05 PM. Am hearing a dog barking kind of frantically from the same spot as I move. Hmm. From a boat, or stranded on the island? I’ll set a course a little closer to shore and see.

2:15 PM. Found a big turkey feather! Two deer leap up in front of me – they are small and rather orange. Coyote scat is on the deer trail.

2:25 PM. I stuff some raw walnuts into my pack in case I get desperate. Found the skeleton of a young female deer on the edge of a field. Teeth are still very sharp, probably a yearling. The bones are scattered as in a merry feast. This should be Deer Island. Navy Island is a stupid name.

2:40 PM. Whoa! A huge fence, 10 foot high of chainlink & wide chickenwire, strung on wood posts set in cement. A sign partially crushed by a tree says “Deer Exclosure, 2004, Pen 2”. The pen is several hundred yards square. It has a lot more forest floor plants than the surrounding landscape.

2:50 PM. Here is the biggest cottonwood tree I have ever seen. The grooves in the bark go deeper than my second knuckle. A cavity at the base is big enough for me to sleep in. The wind through the leaves sounds startlingly like waves crashing on the lake shore.

3:50 PM. Flushed two snipe, poked a big monarch butterfly caterpillar, scrambled through thick brush and fallen trees, discovered a recently eaten pigeon, several campsites, at least half a dozen mostly female deer carcasses. The Canada-facing shore has more trash; probably because it is more accessible to boaters (the shallows don’t extend so far). Having just discovered two redneck toilets (plastic lawn chairs with holes hacked in the seat, the sharp edges smoothed with duct tape, empty beer cans scattered to the right), and beer bottles sprouting like strange growths from tree branches, I think it’s time to cut back across the island and find my boat.

4:14 PM. Footsore & hungry I arrive back at my boat, which is still there in spite of some fisherman checking it out. I wave and they motor away from the dirty twig-haired sweating girl with walnut bulging backpack. There’s a good chop on the water now, between the wind and some squealing tubers (humans, not potatoes) hurtling by at the end of a tow rope town by a massive cabin cruiser. I contemplate peeling and cracking the walnuts, decide to leave them on the beach for the next traveler.

Reconnaissance successful! I love Navy Island.